SoJo Media

Kate Downie RSA came to us after seeing our Anna King site. She liked the simplicity and the way that the work was presented. Nothing seemed to get in the way between the viewer and the artist and that is what she wanted for her own website.

The design is pared down to basics so that all the focus is on the images, which is how it should be. We also worked with Kate to find the best way to present a large amount of text on the CV and Writing pages, and have set up the News section so that she can update it herself, using an online form.

This has been an exciting project for us and working with Kate has been a great pleasure. She has a strong clear vision of how her work should look online, which made our life easy. All we had to do was make that vision a reality.

Go to the Kate Downie site

Springwood Estate - Set in gorgeous estate parkland near Kelso, Springwood Estate caters for those looking for a holiday home in the lovely Scottish Borders.

Springwood wanted a new website that would match the quality of their holiday park - no mean feat as we discovered when we visited the beautifully kept grounds. With lush green lawns, flowers and mature trees, and surrounded by countryside, it is a real haven.

So how to convey all this to new site visitors? Luckily for us, Springwood Estate already had a large number of excellent photographs, which immediately painted a picture of the attractions of the holiday park. We felt that it was important that the copy should also help to 'paint the picture' for our site visitors, so we used our copywriting skills to completely re-write the content. Our aim was to move beyond the basic facts of the previous website towards a much more friendly approach which reflects the warm and welcoming atmosphere at Springwood Estate.

We have set up a simple CMS to make it easy for Springwood staff to update their used and new holiday home sales, as well as to present 'touring area full' messages.

In addition to the holiday homes, Springwood Estate is also home to a retirement village and an area for touring caravans, so we designed the home page to reflect the multiple options, making it as clear as possible for the site visitors.

Go to the Springwood Estate site

Scottish PEN is part of International PEN, 'a dynamic worldwide association of writers pledged to protect freedom of expression and promote literature across frontiers throughout the world'.

The previous website did not properly reflect the work of Scottish PEN and in addition was a nightmare to update, so the brief was to provide a complete re-design.

We met with the Scottish PEN team in the wonderfully atmospheric Writers' Museum just off Edinburgh's Royal Mile, and worked with them to identify their needs. One of the drawbacks of the old website was that the vital work of the campaign committees was buried in a convoluted structure. Our new design brings that information to the forefront - along with 'promos', news / events listings on every page and a clear navigation structure - so that the site user now has a very clear picture of what Scottish PEN is all about. In addition, the team can now update the site properly - and know that they can call on our support whenever they need it.

We are privileged to be involved in the promotion of Scottish PEN and the terrific work it undertakes. As the website says:

The written word is the life blood of communication and democracy, and attempts to silence writers anywhere in the world affect us all. Now in the 21st century we need to be more alert than ever to the curtailment of free expression, and more active than ever in helping the written word to cross borders.

Go to the Scottish PEN site

Ian Newton - From a wonderful location in the Pentland Hills, south of Edinburgh, Ian Newton creates hand-carved memorials, sculptures and commissions, celebrating "as best I can the love of stone, the love of words, and the place of the work."

I first met Ian when he carved a gravestone for my parents, a potentially fraught process which became creative and fulfilling under his guidance. So we were delighted that he turned to us to design a new website for him.

Time was of the essence as his previous website had become defunct overnight (a long and sorry tale!), so we did a fast turnaround to get him up and running again with a brand new look.

Go to the Ian Newton site

Liz Douglas - Liz is a Scottish artist born and brought up in Angus and now working in the Scottish Borders. Her work creates visual environments using pigments, line, print and contemporary media.

An absolute must for Liz was that her new website would be able to display a large and clearly-categorised selection of her work over time. The Work section of the site, with its thumbnails listing page leading to the different series of works, fulfils the objective perfectly.

Go to the Liz Douglas site

Le Moulin de Parrot - It was a delight to work on this site for the owners of a glorious watermill renovation in the Aveyron region of south west France, now a self-catering holiday home with a slew of past visitors queuing up to lavish it with praise - and no wonder.

Even the Sunday Times has been bowled over by this property and we like to think that our website, with its emphasis on images that speak for themselves, does it justice.

"Elegant, clean, beautiful, simple – you've done a fab job, better even than we'd hoped."

Go to Le Moulin de Parrot site

Music-ITE - Music Initial Teacher Educators are a disparate group and need a way of getting together that doesn't involve travelling from one end of the country to the other.

Cue the new Music-ITE website which allows the community to comment and interact with each other. A Guest Blog stimulates discussion. Audio, video and text resources are easily found using tag clouds and related links, and invite comments..

The site was launched at a day conference to great acclaim and Sojo Media also ran workshops for the delegates on how to create digital video resources for the website.

Go to the Music-ITE site

InBiz - Sojo Media project-managed and worked alongside web developers hukhukhuk and designers They.Create to re-design the InBiz website.

As national providers of training and support for start-ups, micro-businesses and SMEs, InBiz know that the client comes first. But the old website left users confused and lost - and with very little understanding of what InBiz could do for them.

InBiz are now the proud owners of a beautifully designed, bespoke CMS website which cleverly and effortlessly presents a large amount of information to the user, while in the background maintenance is straightforward and flexible.

Thanks Alex, Paul and Emma!

Go to the InBiz site

Cheviot Cottages - self-catering in the Scottish Borders - already had a website, but it was beginning to show its age. Like many sites, it had grown over time and was no longer as easy to navigate as it could have been, as well as having a dated look.

Websites have changed hugely over the last few years and people searching for holiday cottage accommodation now expect a site that will really sell the area and accommodation to them, with glorious pictures and text that speaks to the visitor. Effortless clear navigation and no barriers to contact are also a must.

Our copy-writing and photography skills were called into action for the new site. Bowmont House and Horseshoe Cottage (the 2 properties in the Cheviot Cottages 'stable') are easy to promote as they are absolutely gorgeous, but David's special photography has really hghlighted how lovely the interiors are, not always an easy task for a photographer.

We would thoroughly recommend Cheviot Cottages for a very special self-catering holiday break. Just take a look at the website and then try to hold yourself back from filling in the contact form...

Go to the Cheviot Cottages site

StAnza - Scotland's International Poetry Festival - attracts a sizeable festival audience every March to St Andrews, Scotland's oldest university town.

The existing website had done a good job of publicising the festival, but it was time for an upgrade. We were able to build a database which weaves together events and participants and provides the user with clear and concise information. Allied with the attractive visual message presented by David's design, the site visitor is under no doubt of the unique attractions of the remarkable StAnza festival.

Over the year we keep the site constantly up to date with announcements and programme launches, along with the archiving of the previous year's festival, so that the visitor is presented with all the information they need about past, present and upcoming festivals.

Go to the StAnza Poetry Festival site

The Feuerstein Centre for the Making of Man - Billy O'Neill is a man with a mission - to place the theory and methodology of Professor Reuven Feuerstein at the centre of Scottish education, transforming passive and dependent learners, of all ages, into more active self-motivated students.

The courses offered by his Feuerstein Training Centre are much in demand and Billy came to us knowing that the right website would help his clients to find out more about the Feuerstein philosophy and about which courses would suit them.

The smart and professional 'look and feel' that Billy was after was only the start of the design process. We also advised Billy on the best way to present his content so that the needs of the site user were at the heart of all the design decisions. The result is a site that effortlessly guides the visitor to where they want to be - sometimes the most elegant sites are the ones that require the most thought.

"Thanks again for a very professional job. I love the way you have divided up all the information so that it allows the reader to get precise information quickly and easily."

Go to the Feuerstein Training Centre site

The Berwickshire High School is another of our rapidly expanding stable of High School sites.

The Berwickshire High School is entering an exciting phase with the move in 2008 to a purpose-built brand-new school. We worked with the project team to create a real showcase of a website. In particular, David's superb photographs really lift the site into something special.

Among its useful features are content-managed sections so that admin staff can keep the news and calendar pages right up to date. Adding the Daily Bulletin, for example, is a matter of moments.

Go to the Berwickshire High School site

Scottish artist Anna King graduated from Duncan of Jordanstone Art College in 2005 and is rapidly making a name for herself and collecting awards for her evocative landscape paintings of wastelands and forgotten spaces.

The design for Anna's website had to be clear and neutral, reflecting the sense of space and light that Anna achieves in her paintings and providing a simple backdrop to showcase her work.

If you want to know where you can see Anna's paintings, check the website for all her upcoming exhibitions. You can also sign up to receive email updates.

Go to the Anna King site